Newsletter

Letter to the editor

WHAT IS GOING ON?

Can someone tell me why the Hardeeville City Council voted down the Travel Plaza at Exit 5 at Interstate 95? Wilco-Hess is a multi-million dollar corporation operating more than 40 Travel Plazas in North and South Carolina. Recently they presented their request to City Council. At voting time the votes were cast and the request was turned down.

Let’s look at this for a moment. Wilco-Hess would be bringing more than 60 jobs to Hardeeville, at least three retail stores and would be paying the city more than $70,000 a year in property taxes. This is not a truck stop as most people think. About 51 percent of their traffic is cars, vans, pick-up trucks, motor homes and travel trailers.

The city of Hardeeville paid a full-time position for about four years for an economic development person. I believe that figure cost the taxpayers and citizens of Hardeeville about $300,000 and the sad part is, where is the results for the effort? Now development comes knocking at our door and wants to invest $7.5 million for a new project and we turn them down?

What? Are you kdding me. We should be kissing their feet. We need this and thi8s is just what we’ve been looking for. Remember we lost the paper mill a few years back. No, this is not the jobs the paper mill would have brought; however it is a great start. We should be grateful to these folks.

To the Hardeeville City Council, you need to revisit this and you need to reconsider this. In my opinion.